Page 21 of Palazzo
“I hope I meet him sometime,” she said politely. There was so much about Olivier that she liked, especially his solidity and stability, and his kindness to her. He wasn’t glamorous, pretentious, or overly sophisticated. He was real, which she liked better. He came from a normal background, not an illustrious one like hers, and he tried to be a good father to his sons, even though both their births had been unwelcome accidents, and the marriages that spawned them hadn’t been successes. Like Cosima, he was a responsible person, and had made the best of difficult circumstances, and didn’t try to blame anyone else for it, even his ex-wives.
“I hope you meet him too,” Olivier said about his son. “You’ll have to come to his next art show. Let me know what’s going on,” he said to her and hugged her, enjoying the feel of her in his arms for a minute. He hadn’t pressed her or tried to take advantage of the situation to make romantic advances, but he was powerfully attracted to her, and kissed her in his arms before he left. “Take care of yourself,” he said softly, and she nodded.
“You too,” she said with a wistful look in her eyes. She didn’t want it to be that way, but they both had the feeling that there was a third person in the room with them, standing between them. Cosima knew it was Gian Battista, even with their chaste relationship now. Olivier wasn’t as sure, but he had begun to suspect who it was, and wondered if that would change. She appeared to be alone, but he didn’t know how true that was. He could almost feel Gian Battista looking over his shoulder like a ghost when he kissed her.
Chapter 9
Luca was thinking about leaving Saint-Tropez in the next day or two, but the pleasures he encountered there were too appealing. Drugs were plentiful, nights were long and highly entertaining, the women were beautiful, easily seduced, and practically naked all day long on the beach. He was in no rush to leave, although the police visit to the house where he was staying had been unpleasant.
The police returned the next day. His fingerprints were a match with those on the flask found in the palazzo.
“What does that prove?” he said boldly to the detective, seeming fearless and innocent. “I told you the flask was stolen out of my pocket at the casino that night. Maybe the person who took it was the arsonist, or sold it on the street. Carrying a flask doesn’t make me an arsonist.” Or maybe just a drunk. The evidence was damning, but not conclusive. Max’s fingerprints were on the flask too, and Luca now “remembered” that they had been at the casino together earlythat night, and shared sips from the flask. Previously, he had forgotten, or said he did.
“Shit,” Max said to him before they left Saint-Tropez, “they’re getting close.” He didn’t like it and was panicked.
“They don’t know squat, and what I told them is true. If someone stole my flask, it could have been the arsonist. There’s no proof that it was us. There are no surveillance cameras in the house, or even an alarm.” They had never bothered to put one in. Installing a proper one was too expensive, so they’d never done it, or even smoke alarms. The wiring at the palazzo had been poor for years, with constant short circuits and blown fuses. All of which was why Luca had suggested they set fire to the palazzo for the insurance money he’d get.
So far, the police had no conclusive evidence, just their own suspicions. The police in Saint-Tropez had gone to see Luca twice to humor their counterparts in Venice but weren’t really interested. They had enough other things to do. Luca was exactly the kind of guy they hated dealing with. He was arrogant, supercilious, rude, and treated them like dirt under his feet. They would have liked to arrest him just to teach him a lesson, but there wasn’t enough hard evidence for an arrest yet. And they weren’t sure there ever would be. He was clever, and had explanations for everything, some of which held up.
Later in the week, a number of the group at the house in Saint-Tropez left for Greece on a friend’s yacht. Max had to get back to Paris to work, and Luca headed for the Italian Riviera to meet up with other friends. Cosima was back at work in Rome. She hadn’t heard from the police in several days, and the insurance adjusters were doing their appraisal of the damage. Olivier had called herseveral times and was back in Paris. There was a terrible heat wave there and he wished he were on a beach somewhere. He had no plans to go back to Rome for the time being.
He was working late in his office one night when Max walked in. He had just come back from Saint-Tropez the day before and had a good tan. Luca and Max had slept late every day, but they had made it to the beach in the late afternoon.
Max and Olivier both had their jackets off and their sleeves rolled up in the heat. Olivier smiled when he saw him. Max handed his father a stack of marketing reports he’d been reviewing all day. He was bored to tears and missed Saint-Tropez.
“How was Saint-Tropez?” Olivier asked him, and Max smiled in answer.
“A lot of fun…and hot girls,” he said, and Olivier laughed. Max was good-looking and young. At his age, Olivier already had two sons and had been divorced twice. Max’s life was very different, and he had a devoted father who spoiled him. Max had no responsibilities whatsoever, except his job, and his dreams of get-rich-quick schemes so he wouldn’t have to work forever, like Olivier, or as hard as he had until now. Max wanted no part of that.
As Max handed him the reports, a long red, raw patch on his right arm caught Olivier’s eye. It looked ugly, blistered, and infected. “Wow, what happened?”
“Nothing. Some dumb girl in a nightclub bent over a candle and set her hair on fire. I helped put it out and got burned while I did.”
“That looks nasty.” Olivier was concerned. “Did you see a doctor?”
“No, it’s getting better. I’m fine. Our sales went up seventeen percent this month. The fluorescent bags are a huge hit. We have morereorders than we can fill,” Max said to distract him, and Olivier was pleased, but he was still worried about the arm when Max left his office. As soon as he did, Olivier had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Luca and the palazzo came to mind, and he just hoped that the story about the girl in the nightclub was true. He suddenly had the feeling that Max was lying to him, but there was no way to find out.
Olivier called Cosima that night and asked if she had seen her brother. She hadn’t, and he hadn’t called her. She said it was hot in Rome too, but her offices were air-conditioned, and he said his weren’t. The high temperatures were unusual in Paris. He liked hearing her voice, and she said she had no news from the insurance company or the police about the arson investigation.
“If they had any new evidence, you’d have heard from them,” Olivier reassured her.
“Maybe they’ll never have proof,” she said, wondering when she’d see him again. She was surprised that she missed him. But his factories in Italy were closed for the rest of August, so he had no reason to come to Italy at the moment.
She hadn’t known him for long, but a lot had happened in a short time, and she found that she had grown attached to him and liked knowing that he was somewhere not too far away, and that she could reach out to him if she wanted to. She wasn’t ready to get too deeply involved with him, and didn’t know if she ever would be, but there was something special about him that was important to her now. He had filled some of the empty space that Gian Battista had left when he moved slowly away from her to set her free. Olivier was filling the void, but she wasn’t ready to let go of Gian Battista yet and didn’twant to. Olivier could sense it too and had never questioned her about it. She was like a graceful bird poised for flight and he knew that if he moved too quickly he would lose her completely, which was the last thing he wanted. She was like a wave on the sand he could never quite capture. There was a mysterious, elusive quality to her, which was part of her charm.
Cosima had always reminded Gian Battista of her mother. Alberto had been much more earthbound and exuberant. Tizianna had been ethereal, like an angel with her blond beauty. Cosima was so much like her in so many ways.
For both Cosima and Gian Battista, their relationship even in its diminished state was a way of keeping her parents alive. Gian Battista was aware of it. Cosima wasn’t. Her love for him was simple and pure and direct and strong, for all that he was. He was nothing like her father. He was a fascinating older man who had mesmerized her for as long as she’d known him. There had never been anyone to compare to him. Olivier was nothing like him, but now she was attached to him too. It was confusing. She was careful not to move forward with Olivier into something she knew she wasn’t ready for. Olivier didn’t press her. He didn’t want to frighten her away.
—
Luca did some serious playing and partying on the Italian Riviera while he was there. He spent time at the casino in San Remo. He drank more than usual, and was cocky about what he and Max had pulled off in Venice and gotten away with, even though the police had found his flask. They didn’t believe his story but couldn’t prove otherwise, or hadn’t so far. The chief detective in Venice had a theorythat all things revealed themselves eventually. For the time being, Cosima remained their prime suspect, but everything about Luca felt wrong to the chief detective, who was like a jackal silently waiting for his prey, ready to strike.
Eventually Luca ran out of places to stay, and friends to stay with. He headed back to Rome and stopped in Venice, and could never resist a visit to his favorite casino. He ran into friends there, drank too much, gambled heavily, had a lucky win that night, and bought drinks for everyone. In a nearly incoherent state, he bragged about what he had done and gotten away with, and said that when the insurance paid up, he stood to make at least half a million euros for his share of the insurance money, in addition to three million for his part of the house sale. He was going to be a rich man now. He was staggering when he left, and slept at the hotel near the one where Cosima stayed.
One of the dealers at the casino had never liked Luca, who had accused him of cheating several times and had almost cost him his job. With a guarantee of secrecy, he reported what Luca had said to the police. The police found Luca at his hotel the next morning, put him in handcuffs, arrested him, and took him to the police station, pending a hearing with the chief prosecutor and a judge. He put up a fight when they arrested him, but two burly carabinieri removed him from the hotel and drove him away, as the owners and guests whispered.
The chief detective was waiting for him at the station, with the statement signed by the blackjack dealer. Luca was stunned. They advised him to call an attorney. He called Gian Battista from jail and was hysterical. Gian Battista wasn’t happy to hear from him. Lucainsisted that he was innocent and knew nothing of the dealer’s sworn statement repeating what Luca had said himself, bragging of setting fire to the palazzo for the insurance money.
